Last week I received a notice from Counterpath announcing their new Bria For Microsoft Outlook product. I was intrigued by this line from their press release, “Bria For Microsoft Outlook is a plug-in that adds an enterprise-grade softphone to a user’s Outlook application, enabling them to make and receive phone calls and use phone features directly from their contact list, emails and Outlook desktop.”

I don’t know about you but I’ve been waiting for years for an Outlook integration with business phone systems. Today, almost every IP PBX manufacturer has a desktop client that allows the user to dial from their desktop, maintain a phone directory and get a visual indication of voice mail messages. While some of them are pretty slick, they all are a separate application that the user must learn and use. That’s not what I wanted.

I work in Outlook 80% of my working day so it’s the logical place to interface to my phone system. With this product, my wish has been fulfilled. Installation took about an hour, including tweaks and I was in business. Now I have direct calling out of Outlook, both within mail and the contact list, a call history, and the ability to add a new contact by clicking a button when a new call from an unrecognized caller comes in. Plus it has a presence feature that allows me to monitor other user’s presence and status. Oh yeah, and IM too!

The level and quality of integration into Outlook is nothing less than extraordinary. Counterpath did a better job than Microsoft would have done, had they felt compelled to create such an application.

The product utilizes SIP (session initiation protocol) to communicate with the PBX. SIP is the rapidly-emerging IP PBX standard to which some day soon all PBX’es will comply. For now, SIP PBXes include the Nortel SCS 500, 3Com VCX, and the Digium Asterisk, plus most hosted SIP PBX providers.

I am now happily using the business phone of the future today!

Randy Kremlacek

Teledynamic Communications provides free educational materials about telecommunications on an ongoing basis to our subscribers and customers. The company provides a complete range of VOIP, telecom and data solutions for business.